Job Shadowing an Intern?!

We are allowed to blog about anything this week, and I do realize that I'm running a bit late. But I am kind of glad, because some interesting things happened at my internship yesterday.

First of all, it's really weird being on a first-name basis with the anchors. When we were in high school, we were always awestruck when we saw one at a Penguins game. I even made my debut on Pittsburgh Sports Tonight at the Pirates' 2003 home opener - Trenni, the lone female anchor, interviewed me. But, that's going off on a tangent.

Someone job shadowed me yesterday. He was a high school senior, and he came to shadow the marketing department. They sent him to me, and he followed me around all day and I had to show him the ropes. I felt kind of strange, to be honest. I mean, I do a lot of media relations stuff, but I also do some "intern-y" stuff like sending out UPS packages and making copies. I almost felt... important!

Basically, I showed the kid how to do the NQA press release, and we worked on that together. Then I showed him how to do the Trib ads, and he made some himself so that I don't have to do any on Friday. That was nice. The kid was asking me questions as if I were some kind of expert, so it was a pretty cool experience, to say the least.

I remember when I job shadowed for the first time. I went to WFMJ the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, and basically followed one of the anchors around all day and tore up her scripts and sat around while she ran around and got ready for the news. I can't believe someone actually job shadowed little old ME. Pretty crazy stuff right there.

Senior Project!

I'm feeling pretty old right now, as I feel like I just finished my senior project in high school! This one is a lot different, though, because it's a completely individual effort.

I don't have a lot of free time this semester, so I based my project around what I'm already doing. I've been working a lot at WKST, and I produce a lot of newscasts there, so I have plenty of opportunities to aircheck my newscasts. I haven't had the chance to aircheck any there yet, but I'll try to start that this Sunday.

I also do the Tuesday and Thursday noon newscasts on Titan Radio. I had one of my best newscasts EVER a couple of weeks ago, complete with breaking news about a car accident and lots of good sound. It was pre-recorded, so it's saved on a mini disc. I will probably use that one in my presentation.

Basically, what I am going to do is compare the real world of radio to college radio. Titan Radio's facilities are so new and updated that a lot of college students think it's going to be like that at all stations. That's definitely not the case. Not that I have anything against the WKST studios, but they are just a little bit older. I even want to snap a few photos just so people can see the contrasts between the two.

I also want to dissect both newscasts and compare and contrast them as well. I know that the process of crafting them is quite a bit different, and the listening audiences are MUCH different. I want to take a look at the listener demographics of each station and talk about why I report what I report. I think it will be interesting, and I'll definitely be thinking outside the box.

As far as a timeline goes, I'm pretty much just taking it day by day. I would like to have a solid airchecked newscast from WKST this weekend, and then I'll start listening to them and dissecting them, and go from there.

Yes, I am still broadcasting. I promise.

This semester has been very strange for me, mainly because I am so used to being on the Westminster campus all the time and spending all of my time in the newsroom. It's so much different now. I'm in the newsroom on Tuesday mornings, but that is the only day I have free time at all, so I have been scheduling oil changes, orthodontist appointments, etc. for Tuesday afternoons. On Thursdays, I split the entire day between the newsroom and the Holcad office. I am always in the newsroom for about an hour before my night class on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well. It's pretty safe to say that things are insane for me right now.

It's so weird hearing people talking about Titan Crew games and not being a part of them, or listening to DJ shifts and not having one myself, or watching the County Line and Coach's Corner and knowing that I haven't contributed to them. It's kind of sad, actually. I remember last fall, I had two DJ shifts, two news shifts, I ran tapes for Titan AND High School Crews, I did a couple of packages for the County Line and anchored an 88.9 on TCL, I floor directed Coach's Corner, I covered a borough meeting, I took pictures for web stories...I did it all, pretty much.

Right now, since I'm the news director, that's what I've been doing in broadcasting at WC. This week I crafted a checklist to help keep things organized in the newsroom, and I also went over the Titan Radio News Protocol and revised it a little bit. I'm going to send it to Mr. Weaver for approval, then I'm going to send it to all of the BC 311 and 120-B students.

I do the noon newscasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays because everyone else has class at that time, but I also have a class at 11, so I have to pre-record them. This past week turned out to be a strong one for me. It's not easy reporting, producing, and anchoring a newscast entirely by yourself.

On Tuesday, I did an act about mammograms in PA because it's currently Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get sound from anyone local because I was pressed for time, but I did get some sound from the web. I certainly think the story had enough impact to affect people in our area, localized or not.

My main goal for every newscast is to make everything LOCAL and RELEVANT. On Thursday, I had the best content for a newscast so far this year. I led off with breaking news about the accident that happened on Route 158. Now, I'm not sure how much sense it made, because Pam came in and told me about it just as I was going to record my newscast and I scribbled some notes down and read those. I also called Karen Miller, who gives Amish tours through the Lawrence County Tourism Bureau, and asked about the local Amish reaction to the shootings in Lancaster. I got enough sound to do a double ACT, and I think it turned out well. Every story in my newscast was local except for my kicker, which was the news that the Pittsburgh Penguins were sold. I had to stick that in there, of course.

I've also been getting some decent hours at WKST. This week, in particular, I did the news on Sunday mornings as always. News at WKST is very much different than Titan Radio News, but that's a whole other blog entry (seriously, I am going to blog about it). I do some board-opping and editing on Sunday mornings as well, so it keeps me busy. I also ran the New Castle football game on Friday night and did the Saturday morning news.

My internship is broadcasting-related, but I am involved with the PR/media relations side and not the production side. I still get to mingle with producers and anchors and see the processes of running a cable television station, and I can understand all of the lingo, too!

So, there you have it. Although I'm not on campus as much as I'd like to be, I am still very much a broadcaster.

Jobs? What are those?

Wow. Our blog assignment for this week really made me stop and think. In less than a year from now, I won't be in college anymore. That means I have to FIND A JOB.

Now, it's pretty well known that I already have a job in the field. I work for the Lawrence/Mercer County division of Forever Broadcasting, Inc as a radio news anchor/producer and board operator. While I do know that Forever is not in my long term future, a solid position in the company may be a good place for me to start off. They have job postings on the front page, as well as on the employment bulletin page. The reason why I have this as a potential job listing is that I know it's very, very difficult to land your dream job right away. You have to work your way up. I already have my foot in the door at Forever, so I would like to think it would be a little easier for me to move up there - possibly in sales, or some other position. I've been raking in the hours for them over the past couple of months, too.

I also looked around at Foxcareers.com. They list jobs for all of their media affiliates, including Fox Sports Net. I love my internship at FSN Pittsburgh, and landing a job with Fox Sports, whether it be in Pittsburgh or California, would be simply amazing. I'm open to pretty much anything, so working with the Fox Entertainment Group in ANY capacity would be fantastic. I get chills just thinking about it.

Like I've said, my long-term goal is to land a job with a professional sports team. The National Hockey League has job listings on its official website, which I think is awesome. I'll definitely bookmark that website.

As far as the paid websites go, I think they are helpful, but I would much rather search for free than pay. I agree with Liz in that meeting someone in person is a better tool than paying for a website subscription. Medialine.com seems like a very nice page and everything, but I'm all about the specifics; if I want a job somewhere, I'll go to THEIR website.